Naga symbol at the tower of the shuttered eye

Yesterday,when I was at the tower because of the tour guide ,(yes,I'm late^^),I just found the tower covered out- and inside with the Razor Naga symbol and I want to know why.
Nothing against Razor,I like my Naga,but to cover the walls with advertising is not beautiful for me,last night i had nightmares about a big,yellow,illuminated "M" on oracles head!^^
Pls,don´t give us tour guides for forcing us into product placing,maybe it's just a temporary promotion thing,i hope so.
Don't get me wrong pls,english isn't my native language,i love SotA

 

The short answer is that they are real life friends.

Don't open this spoiler if you don't want story spoilers.

Spoiler

the villain of parts of the story is the ceo of razer who is also a huge ultimate fan. Also the sponsor part is true. When Richard and Starr get to travel on fairs etc they do so mainly in partner booths to save project money. Razer being a main one of those.
[/spooler]

 

I'm not certain, but I believe the 'Razor logo' is here to stay. There's no mention of 'Razor' or its products in game, instead, I think the symbol will represent some evil cult or some-such..(i haven't read the material in the tower that probably explains it).. Frankly, if you didn't know Razor's symbol this wouldn't feel out of place, so I think it's pretty clever and not distracting from game-content at all.

Product placement is a lucrative form of funding, and if that will make the game better and they can continue to keep the placement unobtrusive, I think it's just smart fundraising.

[Hey Razor, I bought one of your Black Widow tournament keyboards and it's fantastic!] **pockets $20 for writing this post**

 

Yes,I've read about that Razorsponsorthing,but for me it wasn't unobtrusive-go to the upper floors,the walls are everywhere covered with the naga banner-it was horrible-so much snakes around me
I really hope,that the Razorfundingsponsorproductplacingthing will be the only one,pls no more brands or logos in the game,maybe the devs can place them in the hang-outs or on the homepage or something like that?

 

Well, remember, the symbol in the game is referring to a cult that used to live in that tower. So it makes sense that they would cover the tower in their banner.

 

Honestly this is kind of disappointing to me.... who cares that the symbol refers to a cult in game, they wouldn't be able to use it unless it was an advertising deal. It doesn't work as product placement unless people recognize it (most will) and it's a huge invasion for those that do recognize it and don't like it. We're crowd funded, is that not enough to avoid bogus advertising like this?.. It's not enough that they constantly push new items and new offers in the add on store? Is the money they've raised really that inadequate that they need to start selling out their game as if we didn't exceed the fund raising goal by 10 fold? Imo this doesn't seem like a good sign for the funding or future of the game. We all know what happens when games sell out to large companies don't we?

I don't like it plain and simple. Advertising deals should be kept to the website.

 

I wouldn't want to see Earth products advertised all over Novia.

That said... I haven't seen this Naga symbol in game yet and am not familiar with Razer, but a quick search suggests the symbol is 3 curly snakes with tails intertwined? Which would not be at all out of place in the SotA setting. If that's the only connection being made, it doesn't bother me at all - this is a Lord British game and explicitly linked to Earth so I would expect a few contemporary references. (Anyone remember the bards Paul and Linda in Ultima IV?)

So if the only complaint is that some players who know the Razer symbol, might recognise it in a few places and be reminded of commercialism, I can't get worked up over that. Again, I wouldn't want company logos plastered all over the world, but a contextually-appropriate design here and there isn't that big a deal to me.

Of course, the tour guide might be pointing people at it so the devs can judge player reaction before selling prime retail space to MacDee's and Barstucks...

 

Just a small note here, again...
Min-Liang Tan can be found in Ardoris... IRL he is a big fan of the old Ultima games and of RG.
Also if you look at this:

You should think a little about how closely that resembles:

This combined with this ...

Just saying...

Now carry on with your rants.

 

friendship is magic^^
This is product placing,and it's because of money,isn't it?
I just don't like to see this in game,and it's my personal opinion,no rant necessary,I would like to see advertising at the homepage or elsewhere and just asked for it

 

Bigger version. Doesn't look out of place to me.

 

Actually, Min-Liang Tin (the CEO, not the Ardoris char) himself explained how the very Razer logo, the three crossing snakes, is a DIRECT elaboration of Richard Garriott's lifetime "Silver Serpent" style, shown on his own personal necklace, his crest, and an uncountable other items in the whole series. (*)

And you should imagine that their relationship is far more than a simple commercial partner one.(**) Richard has a very long tradition of putting industry prominent figures in his games (Captain Hawkins anyone?), and not necessarily for celebrative purposes. It's sort of a service mark for Ultima legacy, and one I'd really NOT see going because omg-product-placement-bad-waaah whiners.

Furthermore, did you ever notice how prominent Razer products are? They're the only gaming controllers for which we have explicit support and extra tools (the Chroma-related game options), they're featured in the update page in the header above every news, and many of the Dev Hangout prizes they give out every month are Razer swag.

This is far more than just McDonald's product placement and advertisement. It's a deep partnership that crosses the boundaries of the game and blends in the lives of the franchise owners.

I think no. And I'm sure not, if we keep asking them for absurd, outworldly ideas, like raising UO from the grave...
___
(*) - https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=48896 -- the GDC section.
(**) - https://www.vg247.com/2013/10/28/razer-min-liang-tan-talks-the-power-and-the-passion/ -- Search "Garriott" in that article.

 

I might also point out that at the very beginning, Richard talked about interviewing the Lords of the Manor and Dukes, and weaving elements of our real lives into the world of Shroud of the Avatar.
If you watch the hangouts where the Tower of the Shuttered Eye is mentioned, you'll hear Richard and Tracy talking about how Min Liang Tan specifically requested to be made a villain.

There is more going on here than advertising.

(I'll also point out that we've accumulated a couple hundred more dukes than the original ten, so I no longer expect them to weave all of us in. Not sure if the LotM numbers are overwhelming or not.)

 

I don't care if it's a creative and abstract recreation of Richard garriot's face as a child, the fact is its a trademarked symbol now and has no place being stuck in a game no matter how big of a fan boy the ceo is.

And the odd placements in ultima games in the past were polite nods to other artists, not selling out to large companies.

But all in all way to be incredibly condescending and dismissive, and kudos on citing completely unrelated topics and passing off pure opinion as fact.

 

Now that you say it, I see, where the logo is coming from. Just yesterday I was wondering, if I missed a new addon store banner, which is displayed there and I found it, while a bit sterile (no wrinkles, no dust ...) not really bad or out of game reality.

 

The difference between incorporating certain things from the lives of backers and plastering a trademarked logo all over the game should be fairly obvious.

 

Maybe we should all consider the fact that the people playing the game right now are dedicated backers who just want to see the game succeed. After launch its hopefully going to be a much wider audience, and I dunno it's just a hunch but my guess is many of them are going to like this a lot less than the people that frequent the forums at this point. Seriously how is this going to make the game look? A huge crowd funding success that needs to push product placement like this? You think everyone's going to see it as "good for the game" or as an intrusion on their gaming? Personally I think it's a bit of a joke and I think many will see it this way.

Honestly it's hard to find more than a few people in these forums who will say a word against anything they do at this point. Not a good thing imo.

 

That's pretty cool. I had been toying with the idea of getting some razer equipment and this makes me MUCH more inclined to do so. Perhaps a post Christmas treat for me.

 

I, for one, want to give the developers the freedom to design the game they want to make, unfettered by community members who think they know better.
I certainly don't know how to make games, so I'm not going to tell the team how to do their job.
I do let the team know when I find something fun or not fun. I just do it in a more respectful manner.

 

How exactly was I disrespectful?

They don't need a bunch of "yes men/women" which this forums seems to be packed full of. Real threads pointing out issues quickly drop off the front page because people are afraid to debate either side of real issues while threads about whether or not chickens sleep stick around for ages.

Voicing my displeasure about what I see as rather shameless product placement and my opinion that the larger gamer market and player base will not be happy with it is not disrespectful, it's called being honest with them about how I feel. More people should try it.

 

???
That is a very strange position. Have you read the feedback & bug reports section?
Most people have their pet peeves and will rant about them endlessly, including high and low backers, including me.

There isn't a day that these forums don't have rants about PvP. Or about single player offline. Or about immersion. Etc.

I just did a what's new search and went through the topics, roughly 65% is criticism.

Now I will grant you that any forum regarding something is more likely to retain those positive to the product and will lose those negative to the product. That is a natural progression of forums like these.

However to go from that to claiming that there isn't any words against them when we spend most of our forum time ranting about what we don't like is pretty mind boggling to me.